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Comment by Gary Marcus

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Professor of Psychology and Neural Science
My opinion is that the moratorium that we should focus on is actually deployment until we have good safety cases. I don't know that we need to pause that particular project, but I do think its emphasis on focusing more on AI safety, on trustworthy, reliable AI is exactly right. [...] I would agree. And, and I don't think it's a realistic thing in the world. The reason I personally signed the letter was to call attention to how serious the problems were and to emphasize spending more of our efforts on trustworthy and safe ai rather than just making a bigger version of something we already know to be unreliable. AI Verified source (2023)
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Policy proposals and claims
Ban superintelligence development until safety consensus is reached

Verification History

AI Verified Source URL (techpolicy.press transcript of May 16, 2023 Senate Judiciary Subcommittee 'Oversight of AI' hearing) returns 403 to WebFetch but Marcus's testimony at this hearing is extensively documented. Search results confirm Marcus's substantive position matches the quote: (a) he emphasized deployment-stage safety cases and a nimble monitoring agency for post-deployment review; (b) he proposed FDA/aerospace-style certification rather than a blanket development pause; (c) he was a signatory of the FLI pause letter and explained his motivation was to highlight the seriousness of risks and shift focus toward trustworthy AI rather than literally halt development. Author attribution to Gary Marcus (NYU emeritus, Professor of Psychology and Neural Science) is correct. Year 2023 matches the hearing date. Vote 'against' on statement #379 ('Ban superintelligence development until safety consensus is reached') aligns with the quote's content: Marcus explicitly says 'I don't know that we need to pause that particular project' and 'I don't think it's a realistic thing in the world,' favoring deployment-moratorium and safety cases instead. Verified. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-7 · 5d ago
replying to Gary Marcus